Pia de' Tolomei, Hackney Empire

Some of the most interesting operatic librettos emerge from the slightest of tales. Donizetti’s Pia de’ Tolomei (1837), for instance, emerges from a minuscule passage of Dante’s Purgatorio, later adapted into a verse novella. In medieval Siena, Ghino falls in love with the heroine Pia but is rejected. In an act of spite, he claims to Pia’s husband Nello that she is adulterous, a situation that seems confirmed when she is caught with another man and imprisoned. That visitor, however, turns out to be her brother Rodrigo. By the time the truth is out, Pia has been poisoned. Onto this relatively empty canvas, Donizetti brings his full mastery of the bel canto, with stunningly emotional arias and a rare sense of psychological depth.

For their Spring 2016 season, the English Touring Opera will revive this seldom performed gem, under the direction of James Conway. Soprano Elena Xanthoudakis (the Metopolian Opera’s Rigoletto) will perform as the virtuous heroine against the Brazilian tenor Luciano Botelho. Grant Doyle and Catherine Carby, who also star in the same season’s Iphigénie en Tauride, will join them as Nello and Rodrigo respectively. For devotees of romantic Italian opera, this will be a must see.

Founded by the Arts Council in 1979, the English Touring Opera has a mission of spreading opera outside the capital and to audiences that would not normally be able to experience it. Twice a year, they embark on a tour that takes in venues across the country. With a mixture of established repertoire classics and more obscure gems, they are treasured for their inventiveness, community participation and habit of discovering new stars. In 2014, they won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for King Priam and Paul Bunyan.